Courage
by r4ven3
Summary: A one-shot, set between 5.4 and 5.5. Ruth feels she has an apology to make, and she's determined to go through with it. All she needs is courage. Chiefly from Ruth's POV.


_**A/N: This one-shot was written to put a full-stop at the end of my spate of post-Cotterdam stories. You'll understand what I mean once you read it. Enjoy!**_

* * *

_The soul should always stand ajar._

_Ready to welcome the ecstatic experience._

Emily Dickinson

* * *

_Courage conquers all things._

Ovid

* * *

She stands at his door with her hand raised, ready to lift the door knocker. She drops her hand, looks around her, realising – perhaps for the first time – that it is late, too late for an unannounced visit. It took a lot for her to be here, and she's not about to back out now. She can't go back, won't go back.

She knocks.

She is about to knock a second time when the porch light comes on, exposing her, and then the door opens. She expects to see him in casual dress, perhaps a jumper and slacks, maybe even jeans. _Would Harry even wear jeans?_ He's wearing his suit pants, with only socks on his feet, he is tie-less, and the top two buttons of his white shirt are undone, exposing his throat and neck. _God – not again._

"Ruth?"

"Er, Harry, hello."

"Would you like to come in? It's cold out."

She'd expected him to be angry, annoyed at least, but his face is impassive. She walks past him into his house.

"Would you like a drink, Ruth?" he says, showing her into his sitting room. She notes that, apart from a bottle of single malt whiskey and a glass on a small table beside one of the armchairs, the room is tasteful and tidy. Harry to a T.

"Tea would be nice."

"Take a seat …... anywhere," he says, leaving her to choose her own chair, while he disappears into the kitchen to make tea. By the time he is back with a tray – tea in a teapot, two cups which are somewhere in size between proper teacups and mugs, sugar, milk, and a plate of biscuits – Ruth has chosen to sit on the sofa. It is the only seat which faces his own chair, and with the added benefit of the coffee table between them.

Harry places the tray on the coffee table, and sits on his own chair, pulling it closer to the table. "It has to steep," he explains, "My mum used to do this," he says, turning the pot around several times while looking across at her, a slight smile on his lips, "I'm not sure why, but I do it anyway, just in case -"

"I think it's meant to mix the water and the tea leaves …... but in a gentle way." She smiles at him, enjoying the simple domesticity. For a moment, she imagines that this is what they do, she and he, after a hard day at work. This is them settling before they retire for the night, together, in the same bed. She shakes her head, trying to brush away the thought.

"Ruth? Are you alright?"

"Yes. I just had to remind myself why I'm here."

"You don't need a reason to visit me. I enjoy your company. I hadn't expected you, though …... not after …..."

"Not after I ran away from you …... when -" She is almost ready to run again, but she breathes in, and then breathes out her anxiety. _Courage_.

"Ah …... so that's why you're here."

Harry begins pouring the tea.

"I have mine with -"

"I know how you have yours, Ruth. I've watched you making tea for yourself. In my opinion you have far too much sugar, but that's only because I like sugar, but am having to limit it."

"That's ridiculous."

"Not according to my latest medical report. Apparently I'm twelve pounds overweight for my eye colour, or height, or shoe size …... I can't remember which."

"You're not overweight, you're just -" She stops herself right before her chosen adjective for him leaves her lips.

"Big boned?"

"No, Harry, I wasn't about to say that. Thank you," she says, as she takes the cup from him, pulling it from his grasp so that their fingers touch only for a fraction of a second. He looks disappointed. She sips. "That's perfect, Harry. You know how I like it."

"I suspect I know how you like a lot of things." He closes his eyes and waits, hoping she won't run. He hadn't meant that to sound sleazy, although he is certain he could satisfy all her needs, not only those of the culinary kind.

"Harry? Are you alright?"

"Yes," he says, opening his eyes. "Just thinking. I may have said …... something ….. which could have been taken the wrong way."

"Oh." She hadn't even been thinking along those lines, although now she contemplates what he said about knowing how she likes things …... she's sure he does know. Harry knows how to unsettle her, how to make her face and neck flush, how to look at her in a way which arouses her ….. in every way -

_I can't be thinking this way._

They sip their tea in silence. Ruth looks up from her teacup and sees Harry the man. He is attractive, magnetic, sexy …... _I Can't. Be Thinking. This Way._

Ruth coughs. "Harry ….."

"Ruth?" He puts his cup on the table beside his chair, pushing the whiskey glass – now empty – out of the way, and placing the bottle on the floor.

"I came here tonight to apologise to you."

"Whatever for?" _For turning me on, and then running away._

"I wasn't …... fair. To you."

"Which particular time are we talking about, Ruth?"

"You know …..."

"We-ell, there was the time you refused to go to dinner with me again -"

"I gave you a reason -"

"And I countered that reason with logic, Ruth. You strike me as a reasonable and logical person. That's one of the reasons you're so good at your job."

"Yes, well, that wasn't what …..."

"So which one of the many times, Ruth?"

"The last time."

"By that, you mean when Ros gave me a bollocking, and you came to comfort me …... you _did_ comfort me, Ruth …... and then you left my office, leaving me …..."

"I'm sorry. I hadn't known that. I hadn't known you were …."

"I was. Just a little."

"I was thinking of the hotel, that night when …."

"The night of the loud music."

"Yes. That night. You looked …... you looked much as you do now ….. I was …."

"Scared? Aroused?"

"Harry, you're not making this easy at all."

"Apologies are never easy, Ruth."

"I was scared."

"Of me?"

"No, of course not. I was scared of me."

"You'll have to explain that."

Ruth has been holding her cup in front of her, both hands wrapped around it. _Courage_, she reminded herself, and she put her cup on the coffee table, and sat back, her hands folded in her lap as she looked across at Harry.

"The truth is …. and I told myself on the way here that I'd be truthful with you …... the truth is that had I gone along with what it was clear you ….. wanted …... then I may not have been able to …..."

"To stop me? Ruth, all you would have had to do -"

"No, Harry. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to stop _myself_. Then …... what would you have thought of me? The others would have been able to see that we were together in my room. There were tracers on everyone's mobiles -"

"I could have taken my phone back to my room, and then come back to your room to be with you. They would never have known we were together."

"You've _thought_ about this?"

"I think about little else."

"But Harry, you're meant to be defending the country against terrorists."

"I do. But in my spare time – like when I'm at home on my own – I think about you. Don't you think about me?"

Ruth eyes dart up to meet his. _Is he playing with me?_ No, his face, his eyes, his expression is once again open, naked, trusting. "I also think about little else," she says, her voice so quiet, she fears he may have missed it.

They look across the coffee table, the teapot, milk and sugar still on the tray, the biscuits untouched. They each allow the last of their defences to drop. She sees in his face what she has seen before, while he sees what he has longed to see in hers. Someone has to make the first move …... and preferably before daybreak.

Harry rises slowly from his chair, and steps around the coffee table, his sock-covered feet silent on the polished boards, although one of his knees cracks as he sits beside her on the sofa . She thinks of getting up and leaving ….. but this time she doesn't. She moves closer to him so that their knees touch. Her eyes are on his throat, but she has made that mistake in the past, so she lifts her eyes to meet his. She is surprised to see he looks afraid, wary, unsure …... _Of me? Do I really have that much power over him?_

She knows by now that thinking too much is a valuable skill in her job, but not in her personal life. She reaches a hand up to Harry's cheek, and her fingers slide along his jaw, until they rest on his full lips. "Such beautiful lips," she says.

"As are yours," he replies, placing a tentative finger on her bottom lip, allowing it to slide all the way to the corner of her mouth and back. Her mouth opens and she takes the end of his finger into her mouth, flicking her tongue over the tip. His heart almost stops.

She lifts her head towards him, and removes his finger from her mouth. Very slowly, he places his mouth on hers. He is gentle as he parts his own lips, and places his tongue on her bottom lip. It is all the invitation she needs. Her lips part beneath his, and as their kiss deepens, she falls against him, sliding her arms around his neck, and together they fall back against the cushions. He moans into her mouth, his joy barely contained, as he allows his hands to roam freely over her back. He discovers how difficult it is to kiss while you're smiling.

When at last they part, the need to breathe overcoming their desire to continue the kiss, they sit back and smile at one another. "That was wonderful," he says, grasping her hand in his, just in case she changes her mind and decides to run.

"That was so much better than wonderful," she replies, her smile wide. "Where did you learn to kiss like that?"

"Oh - you know - I put my hand like this," he says, holding his free hand in front of her, his thumb and forefinger forming `lips', "and then I do this." He puts his lips against his thumb and forefinger, and makes loud sucking noises.

"Oh, Harry, you did not! You've no doubt kissed _a lot_ of women."

"Do you mind that I've kissed a lot of women, Ruth?"

"If you hadn't, then you'd not be able to kiss as well as you do now, so I think that means that in the long run, I'm the one who benefits."

"Logical as always."

Harry reaches across and kisses her briefly. "It's late, Ruth. As much as I'd love to take you upstairs to my bed, I think we should call it a night."

Ruth feels disappointed, but she knows he's right. To rush into physical intimacy would be disastrous. She's been there before, and no doubt so has Harry.

"I should go home." Ruth stands ready to leave.

"Not before I've called a taxi for you, Ruth."

"But, Harry -"

"Don't `but Harry' me. I'm calling you a taxi."

While they wait for the taxi to arrive, they stand in the hallway, just inside the front door, their arms around each other, kissing like teenagers. During one especially deep kiss, Harry's fingers stray across her right breast, and during another kiss, he reaches down and grasps her buttocks with both hands, but aside from that, their kisses are deep, but their touch is chaste.

"We have plenty of time for more, Ruth. I'm having difficulty keeping my hands off you, but we'll be grateful later that we waited."

"I know. It's just that it's …..."

"Difficult."

"Yes, it is."

When the cab arrives, Harry opens the door, kisses her longingly one last time, before she runs down the path. She opens the back door of the cab, turns and blows Harry a kiss, and then closes the car door behind her, watching him standing in his front doorway until she loses sight of him.

Her courage has paid off.

* * *

_Next morning._

Ruth lay awake into the small hours, having difficulty turning off her mind, busy with thoughts of Harry. When at last she fell asleep, her phone had rung almost the minute her eyes had closed, or so it seemed.

"Good morning," Harry's silky voice had greeted her.

"Oh, Harry, it _is_ a good morning."

"I thought I'd get in early before you leave for work. I'd like to pick you up and drive you."

"There's no need. I can easily take the tube."

"And I can just as easily pick you up. It's cold outside, too cold to be waiting on a platform for a train. I'll see you in an hour."

By the time Harry had arrived at her front door, she had warmed to the idea of them driving to work together. It was what couples did.

They spoke little on the way, but each time he'd had to stop for a red light, or to give way to pedestrians, he had reached across to take her hand in his, sometimes to lift it to his lips. Ruth thinks she may have woken up in Paradise. He'd been sensitive to her need for them to enter the grid separately, so he had dropped her off at the front door, and parked the car in the underground car park while she went inside ahead of him.

Just before nine o'clock, Harry receives a phone call. After he'd hung up, he leaves his office and approaches Ruth's desk.

"I have to go out for a while," he says, leaning closer to her than absolutely necessary. "Earlier this morning the head of security at Cotterdam Prison jumped under a train. It was at the tube station near your place."

"Good thing you drove me to work, then," she whispers, barely able to look at him.

"Yes, it is. I'd hate it were you to have witnessed something like that."

"Do you want me to look into the Cotterdam fire for you? There's sure to be a connection."

"No, you have that translating to do. I'd rather you kept at it. I'll get Zaf to look into Cotterdam. Perhaps if you ask him yourself, and bat your eyelashes at him like you do to me. How can he refuse?"

"_Harry!_" Ruth looks around her, but no-one is watching them. "I _do not_ bat my eyelashes. That's _so slutty._"

He leans forward a little more. "I love it when you get angry, and your eyes flash like that."

"Harry …... _go_. I have work to do, and I still have to bat my eyelashes at Zaf."

"One thing before I go," he says, watching her closely, keeping his voice low, intimate. "Last night you said I wasn't overweight, but I was …. _what_, Ruth? What were you about to say?"

She looks up at him through her eyelashes and smiles. "I was going to say you're cuddly. And you are," she adds, paying a lot of attention to the various pieces of jotting paper on her desk.

Harry leans back, watching her. "Ruth." He breathes her name into the air. When she looks up, he puts two fingers to his lips, and then turns his fingers towards her, and very briefly touches them to her own lips.

Ruth feels her insides liquefy. "_Go_," she says, her eyes on his.

Harry smiles, and then turns towards the pods. As he walks away from her, Ruth's eyes travel between his bum and the back of his neck, while her mind struggles to decide which she likes best. She sighs heavily, speculating about how long it will be before she gets to view what lies hidden beneath his suit.

"Zaf!" Ruth calls across the two desks which separate them.

"Yes, beautiful."

"Harry has a job for you."

_Fin_

* * *

**_A/N: Whilst this is definitely a one-shot, I have had a couple of requests to continue this, so am at the planning stage (in my head only at this stage) of writing of multi-chapter fic as a follow-up, chiefly to follow up how H& R get on, and how Zaf handles the Cotterdam revelations. This is still in the maybe stage._**


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